Chamber and committees

Under the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 (legislation.gov.uk), an eligible patient is to start to receive agreed treatment within the 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG). Health Boards must take all reasonable steps to ensure they comply with this legislative guarantee.

However, the pandemic has seen the NHS under the most severe pressure in its 77-year existence. Pausing of non-urgent activity has inevitably led to a build-up of both the number of patients waiting for treatment as well as increasing the length of wait for patients.

We know many people are still waiting too long and this is not good enough. We are determined do more and our Budget which will provide a record £21.7 billion for health and social care, with more than £110 million allocated to health boards to help tackle the longest waits for procedures and operations. This includes more than £12 million for ophthalmology.

This funding means 213,000 more appointments will be delivered this year than in 2024-25, exceeding our Programme for Government target of delivering 150,000 extra appointments by more than 60,000. By March 2026, we expect no-one to wait longer than 12 months for a new outpatient appointment, inpatient treatment or day case treatment.

Under the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011, an eligible patient is to start to receive agreed treatment within the 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG). Health Boards must take all reasonable steps to ensure they comply with this legislative guarantee.

However, the long-term impacts of the pandemic, as well as acute seasonal pressures and unprecedented levels of inflation across the public sector, has seen the NHS under the most severe pressure in its 77-year existence. This has affected almost all aspects of NHS care, including the number of planned care appointments and procedures the health service has been able to provide.

Our Budget will provide more than £110 million to health boards to increase capacity and address backlogs of treatment as we work towards achieving the 12 week TTG.

We have also committed to clearing all waits in all specialities over 52 weeks by March 2026.

The information requested is not collected by the Scottish Government.

As outlined in the Mental Health in Primary and Community Care Progress Report (Dec 2024), we remain committed to delivering increased mental health and wellbeing workforce capacity in general practice when it is feasible to do so. As the member will be aware, the Emergency Budget review meant that recruitment of additional roles was paused. We are prioritising investment to maintain mental health capacity in primary care through Action 15 of the Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 and the Primary Care Improvement Fund.

The Mental Health in Primary and Community Care Progress Report also sets out what is needed to improve access to support, assessments and treatment from general practice. It contains a range of actions, including improving access to adult mental health treatment – expanding the NHS 24 Mental Health Hub, by December 2025, to provide access to digitally enabled psychological interventions and therapies for people who may benefit from early treatments.

This is in the context of wider support for general practice: the Scottish Government has already allocated over £1.3 billion to primary medical services this year with a further £56 million on course for pay rises and to provide new preventative services.

This follows an increase of £59.6 million last year to meet the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration recommendations and to cover population growth as well as a further £13.6 million to help GP practices meet the costs of inflationary pressures and deliver local enhanced services.

We recognise long waits are unacceptable and I apologise to all patients waiting too long for treatment. We are determined do more and our Budget which will provide a record £21.7 billion for health and social care, with more than £110 million allocated to health boards to help tackle the longest waits for procedures and operations. This includes more than £12 million for ophthalmology.

Work is ongoing to support local surgical teams to increase efficiency and consequently the number of patients that can be treated across the cataract surgical pathway, in line with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists guidelines.

The role of the Scottish Government is to provide policies, frameworks and resources to NHS Boards in order that they can deliver services that meet the needs of their local population. NHS Boards are responsible for deciding the distribution of funding that they receive from the Scottish Government across the services they manage, including the funding of cataract activity.

This year, as part of our additional £110 million investment to help NHS Boards tackle the longest waits for procedures and operations, more than £12 million has been ring-fenced for ophthalmology.

The figures quoted in the answer provided to question S6W-38738 on 3 July 2025, included all associated costs for running each leased office building, covering January to December 2024. The total lease cost for each building was included in these figures.

Flood risk management implementation reports for the years 2010 to 2012 are available on the Scottish Government’s archive website. These reports are joint publications detailing progress in implementing both the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009.

Relevant links are provided below.

Report for year 2010:

[ARCHIVED CONTENT] Implementation of the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009: Annual Report to the Scottish Parliament - 2010

Report for year 2011:

[ARCHIVED CONTENT] Annual Report to the Scottish Parliament, 2011 - Implementation of the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009

Combined report for years 2012 and 2013:

[ARCHIVED CONTENT]

The Scottish Government has outlined commitments to supporting local planning partners within the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy. This includes considering how to make the current children’s strategic planning environment as effective as it can be, including opportunities to strengthen the visibility and messaging around the importance of multi-agency partnership planning for transitions from children’s to adult services as part of this process.

As set out in the strategy, there is also an action to deliver an enhanced offer of practical support to Children’s Services Planning Partnership Strategic Leads as they begin to develop their 2026-2029 Strategic Plans. This will include a joint workshop with Children’s Service Planning Partnership Strategic Leads and the Integration Joint Board Strategic Planning and Performance Officers Group focused on best practice for transitions between children’s and adult services as well as the role of planning and commissioning in transitions.

A provision in The Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill further seeks to ensure that the statutory duties for Children’s Services Planning placed upon a local authority and the relevant health board, are also placed upon integration authorities. The policy intention for this is to improve transitions for children and their families by enhancing collaborative working and joining up of strategic planning activities across adult and children’s services.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-39323 on 5 August 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.